Case Study Main Line Health At a Glance Organization Main Line Health Philadelphia, Pa. – Four acute care hospitals and seven outpatient imaging facilities – 500,000 radiology studies annually – 80 PowerScribe users
Integrates McKesson PACS with Nuance Voice to Reduce Report TATs, Improve Patient Care In healthcare, time is of the essence, and the radiology report is vital to the decisions leading to the patient’s treatment. At Main Line Health in suburban Philadelphia, the organization has implemented integrated systems that deliver a signed radiology report directly to the attending physician in minutes.
Solution Spotlight
Results
Using Horizon Medical ImagingTM picture archiving and communications system (PACS) from McKesson with Nuance’s PowerScribe® voice recognition solution, radiologists now have instant access to images. They can also sign off on more than 85% of all reports at the time they are dictated, thus improving patient care and speeding up the decisionmaking of attending physicians.
– Instant access to images
Challenges
– Radiologists sign off 85% of cases immediately at time of dictation, self-edit up to 90%
Like many healthcare facilities around the country, Main Line Health was strictly film-based in 2002. With patients traveling between its four acute care hospitals and numerous outpatient imaging facilities, it was difficult to get images where they needed to be in a timely manner.
– Horizon Medical ImagingTM – Nuance’s PowerScribe® Critical Issues – Accessing images when and where needed – Lengthy transcription process – Delays in patient care
– TAT decreased from 23 hours to two hours, accelerating clinical decision-making
In 2003, the health system selected McKesson’s PACS for instantaneous access to radiology, cardiology and perinatology images across the enterprise. While report turnaround time (TAT) was cut in
half because of the ability to easily share patient data immediately regardless of location, the gains were not what they could have been because of the health system’s legacy dictation system. “We experienced tremendous success to the front end of the imaging process with PACS, but the back-end reports were still taking too long,” explains Ken Olbrish, Main Line Health’s enterprise imaging system administrator. “Images were immediately available in the PACS for radiologists to review, but the transcription process was lengthy. “A radiologist would dictate a report in the morning and by the time it was transcribed in the late afternoon, the radiologist may have needed to return to the PACS to review the study again for accuracy.”
Answers To alleviate the back-end challenges of getting radiology reports out quickly, Main Line Health took the same approach it had when selecting McKesson’s Horizon Medical Imaging PACS. “Back in 2002, we didn’t want to implement multiple PACS or mini-PACS solutions,” states Olbrish. “McKesson was one of very few vendors that could deliver a truly enterprise PACS to support all our different ‘ologies.”
Case Study
“The dramatic reduction in report turnaround time helps to greatly improve patient care by allowing attending physicians to make clinical decisions much sooner than in the past.”
An evaluation committee comprised of radiologists and cardiologists, as well as IT, radiology and cardiology staff extensively evaluated what was available on the market for both PACS and later speech recognition systems. At the end of the process, radiology, cardiology and IT independently – and unanimously – selected McKesson and then Nuance to integrate with the McKesson system.
“The system is surprisingly easy to use, technically stable and truly facilitates patient care,” states Dr. Zegel. “Since implementing, we have had numerous new radiologists that have joined our group. Overwhelmingly, these radiologists have indicated our system is vastly superior to similar systems they were using at other hospitals.”
Results Dr. Harry Zegel Chairman of Radiology Main Line Health
“In both cases, our radiologists were hesitant about moving to these technologies,” acknowledges Harry Zegel, M.D., chairman of radiology for Main Line Health. “We were particularly cautious about the speech system for fear of merely shifting the responsibility from a transcriptionist to radiologist.” Those fears, says Dr. Zegel, proved unfounded. For Horizon Medical Imaging, the rollout was scheduled to take place on a modality-bymodality basis over a period of weeks. Instead, within a few days, radiologists were so comfortable using the system they were viewing all studies on the Horizon Medical Imaging system and gave up film review.
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Likewise, for voice recognition, training took approximately one hour start to finish, and radiologists did not feel burdened with extra work. In fact, now when they leave for the day, they don’t have to log in from home in the evenings or weekends to sign off reports.
After implementing McKesson’s Horizon Medical Imaging PACS, Main Line Health’s report TAT dropped from 23 hours to 12 hours. When the organization implemented an integrated voice recognition solution, that TAT was further reduced to a remarkable two hours. Radiologists sign off more than 85% of all reports immediately at the time they are dictated. The system is so easy-to-use that radiologists self-edit 90% of cases. “The dramatic reduction in TAT helps to greatly improve patient care by allowing attending physicians to make clinical decisions much sooner than in the past,” says Dr. Zegel. “We’ve decreased our TAT in many cases from hours to minutes, so it’s not uncommon for an ‘add-on patient’ to have an examination performed and interpreted with a report auto-faxed to the clinical office before the patient can return to the on-site medical office.”
Copyright © 2010 McKesson Corporation and/or one of its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Horizon Medical Imaging is a trademark of McKesson Corporation and/or one of its subsidiaries. PowerScribe is a registered trademark of Nuance Communications. All other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks, service marks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. PRT435-8/10